Undine eBook

“I would have gone with them,” she pursued,
“but the old fisherman, who is said to be my
father—­”

“He is, in truth, your father, Bertalda,”
said Undine, interrupting her. “See, the
stranger whom you took for the master of the water-works
gave me all the particulars. He wished to dissuade
me from taking you with me to Castle Ringstetten,
and therefore disclosed to me the whole mystery.”

“Well then,” continued Bertalda, “my
father—­if it must needs be so—­
my father said: ’I will not take you with
me until you are changed. If you will venture
to come to us alone through the ill-omened forest,
that shall be a proof of your having some regard for
us. But come not to me as a lady; come merely
as a fisher-girl.’ I do as he bade me,
for since I am abandoned by all the world, I will live
and die in solitude, a poor fisher-girl, with parents
equally poor. The forest, indeed, appears very
terrible to me. Horrible spectres make it their
haunt, and I am so fearful. But how can I help
it? I have only come here at this early hour
to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my
unbecoming behaviour of yesterday. Sweet lady,
I have the fullest persuasion that you meant to do
me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely
you would wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise,
so many rash and frantic expressions burst from my
lips. Forgive me, ah, forgive me! I am
in truth so unhappy, already. Only consider
what I was but yesterday morning, what I was even
at the beginning of your yesterday’s festival,
and what I am to-day!”

Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate
flow of tears, while Undine, bitterly weeping with
her, fell upon her neck. So powerful was her
emotion, that it was a long time before she could
utter a word. At length she said:

“You shall still go with us to Ringstetten;
all shall remain just as we lately arranged it; but
say ‘thou’ to me again, and do not call
me ‘noble lady’ any more. Consider,
we were changed for each other when we were children;
even then we were united by a like fate, and we will
strengthen this union with such close affection as
no human power shall dissolve. Only first of
all you must go with us to Ringstetten. How
we shall share all things as sisters, we can talk
of after we arrive.”

Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry.
He pitied her in her affliction, took her hand, and
begged her tenderly to entrust herself to him and
his wife.

“We will send a message to your parents,”
continued he, “giving them the reason why you
have not come;”—­and he would have
added more about his worthy friends of the peninsula,
when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank in distress
at the mention of them, he refrained. He took
her under the arm, lifted her first into the carriage,
then Undine, and was soon riding blithely beside them;
so persevering was he, too, in urging forward their
driver, that in a short time they had left behind
them the limits of the city, and a crowd of painful
recollections; and now the ladies could take delight
in the beautiful country which their progress was
continually presenting.